It's hard to put a finger on why the Heat would tolerate its No. 1 fan

May 10, 2013|John Kass

Miami Heat fan Filomena Tobias applauds in the third quarter in Game 2 on Wednesday. (John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune)

There is no way Chicago will ever allow Derrick Rose to play one second of basketball against the Miami Heat.

Not now. Not ever.

It's bad enough that NBA refs are now allowing the Heat to mug the poor Bulls with cheap shot after cheap shot. And D-Rose, coming back from a serious knee injury, doesn't need to be on the court with bloodthirsty thugs.

But what makes it worse is that Miami's No. 1 fan has now become known to us:

Filomena "The Finger" Tobias.

And we're not going to subject D-Rose to such barbaric, dangerous and terrifying harpies, who represent the very heart and soul of Miami basketball fandom.

No way.

If you think we're going to allow D-Rose anywhere near this spider-woman, who was once accused in a lawsuit of having killed her fourth husband by drugging him and promising him pool sex with a male go-go-dancer named Tiger, you are out of your minds.

It's gotten so bad that Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade — the pride of Harold L. Richards High School in Oak Lawn, Ill. — tried to put a positive spin on the fiasco.

The Finger became an Internet sensation after a photograph of her giving "the finger" to Bulls center Joakim Noah during Game 2 in Miami went viral.

In the photo, The Finger leans to within inches of the gentle Joakim, shaking that bony claw of hers in his face, while she snarls and shows her fangs and reportedly screams obscenities.

What's worse is that the South Florida Sun Sentinel blocked out the offending digit — and Tobias' entire angry hand — with a green circle on its website. They're ashamed of Miami fans too.

In Chicago, we don't act like that. And we don't give "the finger," which is reportedly a vulgar and rampant invitation to sexual violence that is beyond our understanding.

We use the Moutza here.

The local Tampa CBS affiliate called her a "crazy Miami Heat fan," trying to suggest (and failing) that the others aren't just like her. Yeah, right.

Naturally, her family is quite proud of her and bragged on how great The Finger looked giving the finger.

"I have to say she still looks very hot," insisted her daughter, Victoria Racanati.

Hot?

I've seen Corinthian leather bucket seats look hotter than that in cars parked on 95th and Western in August, but what can you say about a daughter's love right before Mother's Day?

What's even better than debating whether Tobias is hot or not, or whether she's a great lady, is The Finger's back story.

Proving once again that America is a great country, Tobias rose from a New Jersey waitress to marriages with a series of wealthy men, each wealthier than the last.

Sadly, husband No. 4 died.

"She had a great body," said husband No. 3, Jay Jacknin, in a New York magazine profile of The Finger. "Women love her. Men find her fascinating. I just couldn't afford her."

Her last husband, CNBC financial analyst and hedge fund manager Seth Tobias, drowned in the family swimming pool in 2007.

This was before Wade and LeBron James teamed in Miami to make The Finger so happy.

According to several media accounts, Seth Tobias' two brothers sued her in civil court. They claimed she killed him by spiking her husband's last meal of penne a la vodka with Ambien, the famed sleeping pill.

She "then lured her woozy husband to the pool area, promising sex with a male go-go dancer known as 'Tiger,'" according to the Sun Sentinel.

"Tiger" has unique tattoos which are now making the Internet rounds as part of the pre-Game 3 coverage. I will not describe them.

Other amazing facts in the magazine profile about the Miami Heat's No. 1 fan include the psychic thing.

During her marriage to the dead Tobias, she relied on a special spiritual adviser on all her major decisions:

Billy Ash, the noted psychic.

The magazine also reported that Ash had been arrested for running con games and for running a prostitution ring where he billed himself as "Mr. Madam."

According to a Tobias staffer, The Widow Finger would barge into the hedge fund manager's office and demand cash. Her side of the conversations often went like this:

Happily, neither Tiger nor The Finger were criminally charged. And the lawsuit was settled and all sides got to chop up Seth Tobias' fortune. We tried calling The Finger's $5 million home, but there was no answer.

So this is the classic Miami Heat fan.

In the pool with the Ambien and the go-go dancer named Tiger and a soon-to-be-dead millionaire. Throw in the tough psychic and The Finger with her bleach job and that New Jersey accent (she'll probably get a reality TV gig out of this), and a question forms:

Are all Miami Heat fans escaped characters from an Elmore Leonard novel or what?

It should be obvious by now that we can't let D-Rose play in Game 3, even though many of us want him to help the Bulls.

What if The Widow Finger leans over and invites him to go swimming? We can't dare risk it.